Thanks Murahilin for the recommendation. I hope to live up to that. BTW, i hope to be posting some notices on this board, with your permission, for newly acquired seeds not yet on my website. That way members interested could get first dibs on really rare seeds.Oscar

I have bought a few times from them. 0% success with recalcitrant and other tropical fruit seeds. Only eucapytus and acacias germinated well. Consider that first the seeds are collected far away, then send to Germany, then stored, and later they arrive at the customer. I guess, in a best case scenario those seeds take at least 4 weeks from collecting until they arrive the customer.

I have bought a few times from them. 0% success with recalcitrant and other tropical fruit seeds. Only eucapytus and acacias germinated well. Consider that first the seeds are collected far away, then send to Germany, then stored, and later they arrive at the customer. I guess, in a best case scenario those seeds take at least 4 weeks from collecting until they arrive the customer.

I have ordered from them before. seems there is less risk of confiscation when seeds are in a factory sealed envelope ( Burpee style etc. ) unlike when I order from an Ebay seller, which I have had mixed results, sellers will often re-send them if they get confiscated though, and I usually get them eventually.

But like others have said, regarding the time sensitive ones, sometimes I just do not get any germination at all.

I wonder if the mail irradiates packages, or uses a strong xray or something that can kill seeds? could be because of the cold also as others have mentioned.

Logged

William" The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.....The second best time, is now ! "

Some species are just hard to germinate; but how have the recalcitrant seeds been packed when you got them?

Before I was able to find live Mangosteen locally i purchased seeds on 3 different occasions from 3 different Asian sources. these seeds were all well packed, they arrived in moist peat, in zip locked bags and taped. non arrived crushed, some even sprouted on route, but not one grew. In this case I suspect it was the delay, the fastest order took around 18 days. since mangosteen can lose 75% of its viability in just 1 week, its no surprise. in contrast, the Garcinia aristata seeds I bought from a US source, gave me like 100% germination.

Logged

William" The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.....The second best time, is now ! "

Some species are just hard to germinate; but how have the recalcitrant seeds been packed when you got them?

Before I was able to find live Mangosteen locally i purchased seeds on 3 different occasions from 3 different Asian sources. these seeds were all well packed, they arrived in moist peat, in zip locked bags and taped. non arrived crushed, some even sprouted on route, but not one grew. In this case I suspect it was the delay, the fastest order took around 18 days. since mangosteen can lose 75% of its viability in just 1 week, its no surprise. in contrast, the Garcinia aristata seeds I bought from a US source, gave me like 100% germination.

Are there many mangosteen trees that are producing in DR? Has your trees begun fruiting yet?

First I have to mention that the mail in Mexico is not the greatest and is getting worse by the day , before I used to get seeds from all over the world in less than a month . Now only registered mail arrives , I guess the rest gets stolen ....

For me # 1 is Fruitlovers # 2 would be Sadhu and Sherry in PR and Helton in Brazil , he's the sweetest guy and will bend over backwards to keep you happy , I met him in person .Kinda pissed of with Montoso garden ( not with Bryan ) who made me wait 4 years to find out the yellow grumichama I asked for were actually black...Jim in Equador has nice stuff but poor quality ( several arrived with worms )

This is just my experience with commercial seed sellers and I want to take advantage of this message to thank all the rare fruit collectors world wide I swapped seeds with.

Some species are just hard to germinate; but how have the recalcitrant seeds been packed when you got them?

Before I was able to find live Mangosteen locally i purchased seeds on 3 different occasions from 3 different Asian sources. these seeds were all well packed, they arrived in moist peat, in zip locked bags and taped. non arrived crushed, some even sprouted on route, but not one grew. In this case I suspect it was the delay, the fastest order took around 18 days. since mangosteen can lose 75% of its viability in just 1 week, its no surprise. in contrast, the Garcinia aristata seeds I bought from a US source, gave me like 100% germination.

Are there many mangosteen trees that are producing in DR? Has your trees begun fruiting yet?

There are fruiting mangosteen here now, I have not seen them personally, but the seedlings I have are from these fruiting trees. there are only a few scattered around in private collections and in research centers. a person I know that is a Biologist in the country was able to get his mangosteen to fruit in just 5 years, using organic bio stimulants. my plants are still too small, about 2-3 years old with no branching yet.

Quote

First I have to mention that the mail in Mexico is not the greatest and is getting worse by the day , before I used to get seeds from all over the world in less than a month . Now only registered mail arrives , I guess the rest gets stolen ....

I never use regular postal service in the DR, I would probably not get one item.

I use a mailing service called "Business Mail" http://www.bmcargo.com/ Envelopes and letters are dirt cheap to mail in, and anything under 200 dollars pays no import tax. a letter may only cost me 0.60 cents dollars, to bring over. and even more important I have a US mailing address, and someone is there to receive packages.

But they will ship containers full also.

In Mexico there must be a similar type service available. everything from seeds, magazine subscriptions, parts, clothes etc. heck they even have a PC where you can order something on Ebay and pay them in pesos , and they pay Ebay. for those people that don't have a PC or Bank account in dollars.

Coincidentally there is a great supplier of these biostimulants in Mexico,

To get your mangosteen seedling fruiting/flowering prior to celebrating its 5th anniversary of being planted out, it doesn't always take special treatment.Mine fruited at 7ft and at almost 5 years in the ground,being 1 foot when planted. It didn't get special treatment like dry season watering and regular fertilzer until after it first fruited.Likewise a grafted durian fruited within 5 years before weather took it down.I think the prolonged heat and humidity of the local monsoon season may give them a boost.I do however have a mangosteen runt which at 5 years is heavily branched but only 4 feet and nowhere near fruiting.